Monthly Archives: October 2012

Today being Halloween, I’m thinking about all of the masks and costumes that are being worn. When we know someone well, we can usually still tell who they are underneath their costume, by identifying subtle clues such as body language or the general feeling. I bring this up today to introduce another aspect of diagnosis in Heilkunst, which is that of identifying the essence of a disease, rather than its outer form which may be changeable.

This goes back to Dr. Hahnemann, who identified that there are two types of diseases — those of a constant nature, and those of a variable nature. The constant nature diseases are constant at the level of their essential nature, although they may manifest in different forms under different circumstances. Once the Heilkünstler gets to know the essence of constant nature disease, they will tend to become more and more competent at identifying it under a variety of manifestations, the same way that we will tend to easily identify our close friend even when they’re wearing a costume. Some of the constant nature diseases (otherwise known as “tonic” diseases), included the miasms, both of a chronic and of an acute nature. Also, diseases which are the result of a particular type of shock, whether of a physical or mental/emotional nature, will produce a specific corresponding form of disease, which always is treatable by the same remedy. Any injury involving nerve damage, for example, will always produce a disease that is treatable by the remedy Hypericum. Due to the constancy of this category of disease, the Heilkünstler is able to very reliably identify (diagnose), and then cure them with their fixed remedy. It’s as if they have xray vision, and are able to see through the mask and costume of any disease, directly into its underlying true identity.

I took a look at one aspect of vaccine efficacy yesterday, and today I want to examine an aspect of vaccine safety, but from a very different vantage point than you would normally encounter in vaccine articles. The list of additives and chemicals contained in the standard vaccine schedule is shocking, to say the least. There is a great number of toxic and carcinogenic substances, and common sense would dictate that we would want to exercise extreme caution about using any one of these, let alone such a long list of additives which children receive in the standard vaccination schedule.

For the purposes of today’s blog, rather than examine these toxins in the usual way, I want to illustrate some of them from the point of view of knowledge of the homeopathic materia medica. As you may remember, the symptom picture of every homeopathic remedy contains not only an image of certain physical symptoms, but also will embody a unique state of mind. Health functions out of a particular state of mind, and when it is impinged upon by disease, it will shift into the unique state of mind of the given disease.

Looking, then, at some of the vaccine additives from the point of view of their unique disease state of mind, we start to see a side of vaccination and its adverse effects based on this deeper image of a disturbed (away from health) state of mind. To the degree that a vaccine recipient has an underlying resonance for any of the diseases represented in the vaccine additives, they are susceptible to a strong reaction to the corresponding substance. Think of the overall state of mind of kids in the public school system, as well as the overall tone of our modern society as you read through these:

Alumina (aluminum) – A state of mind of dullness, and mental sluggishness. Slow mental processing, and a resulting irritability. The heart of this remedy is a state of mind which is confused about its own identity and purpose.

Calcarea Carbonicum – The state of mind of this disease is one which contains much anxiety about any number of things, including their own health, or ability to complete their work. The overall metabolism and immune function may be sluggish as a physical expression of the deeper state of mind, which is all about a struggle with fully engaging life.

Hura (Latex) – This is normally a remedy used in Heilkunst in the ‘ideogenic’ realm of disease, which has to do with the higher function of our mind, and its ability to see reality clearly as it is, and our place in it. Hura, more specifically, is a disease state of mind which feels separate or cut-off from society, where making true contact can seem impossible. Another side of this feeling is of being an outcast.

Mercurius – This is a fascinating disease state of mind. Mercurius is a kind of shape-shifter, in the sense of a con artists that keeps changing their identity and never getting caught. This disease produces many irrational impulses, and strange behaviours. As a physical toxin it has a strong affinity for the brain and nervous system, and this is seen in strange tone of emotions and behaviours in this remedy.

The practice of vaccination is built on a number of myths, which is not unusual to find in the cadaver-based science of conventional medicine. (The phrase “cadaver-based science” implies both the nature of “dead” anatomy which medical students learn by dissecting cadavers, as well as the cadavers piled up in body bags due to the high death rate from medicine and medical procedures). I’d like to spend a moment today describing the problem with one of the myths used to support the supposed efficacy of vaccination, which is built around the idea of the “titre count” (ie antibody count) indicating the effectiveness of a vaccine in creating immunity. First of all, this is a prime example of how Western science is based on a reductionist way of thinking — the reduction of the whole complexity and dynamics of the immune system and its responses down to one snapshot measurement of the number of antibodies present at a given moment in time. This measurement is usually used to determine if a recent vaccine was effective at producing an immune response, as well as if the time has come to give a booster to raise the level of antibodies back up to an arbitrarily-set ‘acceptable’ level for immunity. The fact is that the titre count is not an accurate measure of a person’s immunity. The titre count is only measuring the person’s current number of antibodies to a given microbe, but it does not indicate anything about the status of the more important memory cells in the immune system, which are what will produce the antibodies in response to an exposure or infection. As someone brilliantly condensed into an analogy : the fact that the firefighters are all hanging around the fire station not doing anything in this moment tells us nothing about their capacity to leap into action when the siren goes off, and put out a fire.

One of the problems with the focus on this measurement, is that it is used to falsely prove the efficacy of vaccination. By getting a high titre count from someone just following a vaccination tells us nothing about the ability of their immune system to recognize and ward off that pathogen in the future, but simply tells us that there has been recent activity involving it, and there are still signs of it lingering in the blood stream. At best, all that this measures is some form of short-term “effect” from vaccination, but not anything about actual efficacy or immunity. The truth is that a true test of vaccination’s efficacy has never been conducted, as the outcome of such a test would demonstrate how much more effective natural immunity was than the profit-generating vehicle of vaccines.

What is a “homeopathic remedy”? This term is often used incorrectly, even sometimes by trained homeopaths. For those who have no experience with homeopathy, they may assume that it is just another way of saying “herbal remedy” or even “natural remedy”, but it has a much more specific meaning than this. The other huge misconception which people have about the term ‘homeopathic’ is that it is a reference to the method of potentization used in homeopathic prescribing (ie a substance which has been diluted and succussed to radically diminish its material component). When people have debates about whether or not “homeopathic remedies” work, they often are using the term in this sense of a diluted and potentized substance, and are questioning the possibility of a non-material remedy having any efficacy. To understand the term ‘homeopathic remedy’ correctly, we need to understand both the words “homeopathic” and “remedy” accurately. In its literal sense, the word homeopathic means “similar suffering”, and is referring to the law of nature known as “the law of similars”. In this sense, then, it refers to a relationship between a disease and a medicinal substance which are very closely similar (and therefore there is a curative relationship between them). Whether the medicine was potentized, or not, does not define a homeopathic relationship. This is why the use of some herbs, for example, may sometimes have a homeopathic relationship to the disease being treated, or even some pharmaceutical drugs, for that matter. It is not the safest way to apply a homeopathic remedy, but nevertheless, it can still be homeopathic.

The term “remedy” is another one which can tend to be used too loosely. Again the so-called ‘homeopathic remedy’ which you buy at the health food store may be neither ‘homeopathic’ or a ‘remedy’ in any given case. It may be called ‘homeopathic’ only if it has the relationship of similarity to the disease being treated, and it may only be called a ‘remedy’ if it actually remedies something. A ‘remedy’, also, isn’t always necessarily a medicinal substance, but may be a lifestyle modification, or even an idea which catalyzes a changes in someone’s perception or psychological state. It is the result of a ‘remedy’, upon which we can judge whether it actually was one, or not.

Last evening I had the pleasure of seeing a solo performance of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, by actor Raoul Baneja. When I say that it was a solo performance, I mean that this one actor played all 17 parts of the play. Theatre can tend to be a very immersive experience, and this format most definitely accelerated that.

The usual function of theatre, as carried through the actors, is of a kind of participation of distinct states of mind portrayed by each of the characters. The actor, them self, may experience a deep cathartic release from entering into their character, and re-connecting to a human aspect of themselves which they have been cut off from. In its extreme form, as was recounted after the death of Heath Leger, was that the depth which he entered into the character of ‘The Joker’ was more charge than he could handle, and led to his demise.

The journey of health ultimately aims for us to reconnect with every aspect of the human experience, at least in its pure form of archetypes and states of mind. The feat accomplished by Raoul Baneja is one which represents this phenomenon of a reclaiming of a full spectrum of our humanity, and which we can each hold as an inner model of “putting Humpty back together again”.

In a similar vein, the act of creativity is essential to the unfolding of our health. The forms of creativity are varied, and unique to the skills and talents of each individual. The creative mind of Shakespeare, for example, would have also accomplished this same feat in creating all of these characters originating from a single mind.

As one further note of interest about this play, there is an aspect of the law of similars, which I have previously written about here.

One of the most common symptoms which my patients complain about is their memory. Or more specifically, their lack of it. This is a broad-ranging topic, with many different types of symptoms, along with a variety of different causes and treatments. At the most general level, memory is a function of self-consciousness, as we know from the fact that most people do not have any memories of their life before about the age of three, when their sense of “I” first awoke.

Impairments of memory can occur at different levels — anywhere from short-term memory issues such as forgetfulness to long-term issues such as amnesia. Memory loss may result from a shock or trauma, such as a contusion, or even a strong emotional shock, where remembering a certain incident would be too painful. This is true in various ways in patients with histories of extreme abuse. Other factors such as nutritional deficiencies, particularly ones which have a direct impact on the brain are known. All this to say, that there is no universal homeopathic remedy, or even nutritional approach which will solve all memory problems. Part of maintenance, of course, goes back to the “use it or lose it” principle, where our mind and memory function in particular needs to be used and exercised on a regular basis. But beyond this obvious level of care and maintenance, there is a much deeper exploration that is needed on a case-by-case basis to determine what is getting in the way of a healthy memory function. Even looking at Kent’s repertory (of homeopathic remedies), under the “weakness of memory” section, we can already see that there are very different presentations of weak memory, including:Weakness of memory for:

What he has just done

What he is about to say

What he is about to do

For proper names

For what he has just thought

And so on. Each one of these categories (and there are several others) is connected with a different potential set of remedies that may help the patient, and needs to be matched precisely. Now, given all of these factors of the pathological side of memory, keep in mind that there is actually a healthy function to forgetting — there is a state of hyper-memory which is not healthy, which is described by the state of mind of Natrum Muriaticum. This is where someone pathologically attempts to “hold on” to everything, including memories and sentimental thoughts and feelings about past events in their lives. The healthy mind lives somewhere between these 2 extremes, where there is a healthy amount of remembering, as well as a healthy amount of forgetting. Like all healthy functions, there are extreme forms which move outside the range of “healthy”, and into the pathological.

In order to portray for you a more complete understanding of the concept of crude versus refined nature, I’m coming at it from a variety of angles so that you may see it in more of a three dimensional portrayal. I’ve recently blogged about the difference between ‘matter’ and ‘substance’, as well as my distinction between the crude versus refined aspects of sex. Today I’d like to portray an interesting aspect of this topic from a historical examination of the birth of modern vaccination method. 1796 is a fascinating year in the history of vaccination and immunization — it is when Edward Jenner revealed his discovery of his new method for vaccinating for smallpox; it was also exactly the same year that Hahnemann first wrote about his rediscovery and reclaiming of the ancient ‘law of similars’ as the natural law of cure as well as prevention of disease. Jenner was working through crude nature, while Hahnemann was working the same concept through refined nature.

Studying the history of vaccination, both preceding and following Jenner, his method is especially notable when looked at with an understanding of Hahnemann’s system. His approach was the first and only within the history of crude vaccination to use a similar disease, rather than the exact disease being treated for. That is, he proposed using cowpox (a disease existing in cows) as the vaccinating agent against smallpox, which was a similar disease in humans. He had observed that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox epidemics if they had previously been exposed to cowpox. Both before and after Jenner, it is not a similar, but an exact that is used; in other words, modern vaccination for smallpox uses a form of smallpox virus as the base ingredient. Even before we address the issue of applying crude versus refined nature in vaccination, we need to very carefully heed Hahnemann’s warning against the danger of using an exact rather than a similar. This is one of the reasons why there are so many adverse reactions to vaccinations which are based on using the exact microbe. In the case of homoprophylaxis or homeoprophylaxis (homeopathic immunization), it is a similar rather than an exact which is being applied, as the homeopathic dose has been sufficiently altered to render it as similar rather than an exact match of the original disease. Regardless of the fact that Jenner was not aware of Hahnemann’s observations or methodology, it is still fascinating that he discovered this method of prescribing similars at the exact same moment in history that Hahnemann began to write about this central concept in medicine. Jenner’s methodology was still incorrect in terms of using a crude application of nature rather than refined, there was a gold nugget of truth in his stumbling across this idea of similars instead of exacts.

Yesterday, I presented an example of Dr. Hahnemann’s distinction between crude and refined nature by illustrating the difference between ‘matter’ and ‘substance’, and today I’d like to further illustrate this concept through the topic of the sexual function.

At its most basic level, crude nature utilizes sex in the act of procreation, or sexual reproduction. We are probably all well aware of the mechanics involved in making a baby as an example of the overt or outward expression of this aspect of crude nature. I say ‘crude’ here simply in the sense of an overt physical manifestation of a process in nature which is outwardly visible to us.

There is, however, a very different function of sex which is not related to making babies, and in this more refined function, the ‘conception’ is not of a baby, but is occurring at the level of consciousness. Notice how the word ‘conception’ carries this dual meaning, depending on the context. A further distinction within this is between the ‘climax’, and the ‘orgasm’ where the former is more a function of crude nature, and the latter more of refined nature. Especially with the teachings of of Mantak Chia’s The Multi-Orgasmic Couple, or similar material, it becomes clear that there is something very different going on in a climax than in an orgasm.

On this note, in the assessment of someone’s health, what starts to become clear is that the climax on its own does not create a complete energy discharge, and the result is a gradual build up of undischarged life energy, which gets recycled into secondary expressions, such as physical symptoms, or other psychological or characterological expressions (such as neurosis).

There is a process of potentizing the sexual function up from its basic crude level into the more refined expression of the full orgasm function. Just like a homeopathic remedy, the more highly potentized it is, the greater is its potential effect for healing and expanding our consciousness, and to give ‘birth’ to a more complete expression of our individuality.

In some of my previous blogs, you may have noticed a few times that I referred to Dr. Hahnemann’s distinction between nature in its crude form versus its refined form. What is crude nature compared to refined nature? There are various implications and ways of looking at this distinction, and today I’d like to focus on this question by looking at the difference between ‘matter’ and ‘substance’. Matter tends to be the focus and object of modern science — in fact, it is so fundamental to our world view, that many consider the only things which are real to be those things which contain a detectable quantity of matter. In physics, for example, the quest has been to discover the ultimate “building blocks” of the universe, which means a search for tinier and tinier particles which form all of matter. The fact that Quantum Physics has put a serious wrench into this quest hasn’t yet changed the fundamental paradigm around matter. Conventional medicine works from this very same paradigm of matter — everything from the annual physical, to the range of diagnostic methods such as x-ray, ultrasound, or MRI, the questions about health which are asked by medicine, and the answers presented are entirely framed within the guiding question of “What’s the matter with the patient?”. The problem with this model comes (and it does often) when there is nothing actually the matter with the patient, yet they feel quite ill within themselves. This is where we need a model which has a broader framework than just matter at its foundation. The difference, then, between matter and substance becomes all-important when the conventional approach to medicine comes up empty-handed in diagnosing and treating someone’s health issues. The root of the word ‘substance’ means something along the lines of “to stand under” — so, substance, then is something which “stands under” matter, and can be thought of as a kind of “formative force”. The difference between the living, functional nature of someone’s body while they’re alive, and then its subsequent decomposition as a corpse is an illustration of this difference between substance and matter. Both the living body and the corpse are made up of matter, but it is the substance (ie formative forces) of the living body which hold it together both in its physical form, as well as living functions.

The method of homeopathic prescribing, then, has much more to do with substance than with matter. Many criticisms are made against homeopathy, but this generally all comes from a matter-only paradigm, which does not understand the nature of substance. This substance approach to medicine is the reason that homeopathics have proven to be so much more successful at treating issues of a functional nature, which have not yet even shown up on an x-ray, or MRI, and for which the patient is often sent home being told “it’s all in your head”. Also, chronic illnesses which have had the time to manifest in a form of symptoms at the material level still need to be treated at their root formative level of their substance. Aren’t you glad to know that it’s not all in your head, and that there’s probably nothing the matter with you?

The bathwater has to go, but please keep the baby! I am often asked what my ‘position’ is on vaccination, with the expectation that I’ll respond that I’m against it. The truth of the issue is that a more nuanced question is needed here — at a minimum, there needs to be two questions to replace this one, which are “what do I think about the concept of vaccination?”, and “what do I think about the modern method of vaccination?”. Now I can at least start to explain how I’m for the former and against the latter. The concept behind vaccination, then, is the baby that we’d like to hold on to in this case. The very dirty bathwater, though, is full of all the chemicals and additives mixed in with the vaccine, and which gets injected directly into the bloodstream of our babies. The method of this allopathic procedure, as it is with all of allopathic medicine, is one which is still grounded in crude, unrefined nature. Dosages of drugs are measured by the amount of matter they contain, which is already, by definition, overpowering of the subtle energy dynamics of our own living system.

Conventional vaccination is throwing another important part of the baby out, as well — that is, of the positive benefit contained within the experience of the childhood diseases and their fevers. By completely blocking (or in this case, suppressing) the natural disease process, the physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of development that would have been stimulated by overcoming the disease are lost to the child. If success in healthcare is only defined in negative terms (ie NOT getting a disease), then these positive benefits are missed. This is not to say that disease can or should be ignored, and allowed to have its way with us — this is where the true concept of immunization needs to be understood and applied. By correctly understanding the homeopathic principle of disease treatment or prevention (the law of similars), the benefits of the disease can be obtained while allowing the patient to have a refined dose of the disease in question (a so-called ‘homeopathic’ dose), which allows them to bypass the risky aspects of contracting that same disease in nature.